Interview with Melissa Coulter about Quadsville

Quadsville is a standalone social networking site for the Quad-City Times.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Quad-City Times has its own social networking site just for its readers. Quadsville is far beyond what most newspapers are doing with social networking.

Once people sign up for a Quadsville account (the same account they use to access the Quad-City Times) they can write blog posts, post photos, share videos and interact with other members of Quadsville (even send private messages and start their own groups). Quadsville was started because the Times wanted users to interact with each other outside of just the comments on staff stories and blog posts.

Ultimately, Quadsville is all about community. Melissa Coulter is the Mayor of Quadsville. She is the mayor, instead of editor or producer or whatever because Quadsville is based around a civic model. And a major leads a community, while an editor is much more detached.

“We really wanted this to be a locally focused site,” she said. “That’s where my title of major comes from. We also have a council with some of our more trusted and regular bloggers who have some moderation capabilities and help me keep the community clean and in line.”

Her job as mayor is much less top down than a typical editor. She is not so much trying to steer content or conversations as much as she is trying to make people want to interact more. She goes out, in person, and tries to get organizations on Quadsville, and she also highlights interesting conversations that are happening.

“Basically, I’m trying to build participation in the site,” Coulter said.

The Times has allowed readers to comment on stories for several years now, but readers told the TImes that they wanted to interact with each other more. Yes, they could interact in the comments section of stories and posts, but that wasn’t the level of interaction that Times readers wanted. They wanted more.

“One of the things we found with comment streams is that comments would veer way off topic,” she said. “Quadsville lets them guide the discussion and interact with each other on a more personal level.”

And yes, they have a business plan beyond advertising. You’ll find out what that plan is and so much more in this week’s podcast, including:

• How they do live chats, easily and effectively.
• Some tips for community building
• How do the two sites interact?
• Using Quadsville for source development for reporters.

Click here to stream the podcast. Or download the MP3.